In Orange Beach cemetery, identity of many bodies a mystery

Ryan Dezember, Press-RegisterOf the 84 people buried in the Orange Beach Community Cemetery, the identities of 27 are a mystery. While a few of those graves are marked by simple, nameless markers, many long ago lost any indicator and were located only by sonogram.

ORANGE BEACH, Ala. - When residents gather today to celebrate this city's 25th anniversary, Fire Chief Forney Howard is hoping some of the old-timers might be able to reach back in their memories well beyond the town founding and help explain who might be buried in the Community Cemetery's many unmarked graves.

"If they say, 'I know my granddaddy is there,' or 'I went to a funeral there,' then we can narrow it down," Howard said during a recent visit to the graveyard, which is tucked behind a small, unmanned firehouse on Bear Point.

Locals have long known there are bodies in the Orange Beach Community Cemetery unaccounted for by above-ground markers. But the extent was not known until 2000 when Tony Kennon, who is now the city's mayor, sought to have his late father, Robert Kennon, buried in Orange Beach's only graveyard. When a body turned up in what was thought to be an empty plot, firefighters scanned the ground to look for an unoccupied spot.

"There were bodies all over with no stones," the mayor said.

Ryan Dezember, Press-RegisterOrange Beach Fire Chief Forney Howard is hoping that with many long-time area residents congregating this weekend to celebrate the city's 25th anniversary, he'll be able to glean more about who might be buried in the Community Cemetery's 27 unmarked graves.

In all, Howard said, there are 84 people buried in the cemetery and the identity of 27 is a mystery.

In several instances there are small metal markers that have apparently lost the paper tags that would name the person below. A small, rotting stump of lumber and a smattering of seashells marks one site. The location of many other bodies is known only through the handwritten chart firefighters drew when they X-rayed the grounds.

Howard is trying to gather more information about the cemetery in a bid for state historical status. With such a designation, federal and state money, not to mention expertise, would become available to help repair the grounds in the event of storm damage, he said.

In 1979 a local family who ran a dairy operation deeded a tract to the Orange Beach Volunteer Fire Department at Canal Road and Campagno Lane that included the graveyard, Howard said. The first land records for the property date back to 1881, which is five years before the oldest date on any existing tombstones, that of W.B. Walker, who died in February of 1886 at 17.

Many of the oldest existing headstones, which date to the late 19th century, belong to Walkers, members of a pioneering family that, along with the Callaways, still live locally and are generally believed to be the area's first European settlers. Howard said he has been told earlier graves belonging to Native Americans and Confederate soldiers dot the cemetery and the private property around it, but there is no aboveground evidence.

Press-RegisterA headstone that dates back to the 19th century stands in the Orange Beach Community Cemetery. The Orange Beach Volunteer Fire Department, charged 30 years ago with its maintenance, is seeking historical status for the graveyard.

In a genealogical study of the cemetery conducted in 1998 by Joyce VanValkenburg, one name, Cowan, appears with a birth date of March 15, 1783, which has perplexed Howard and others since that person would have almost certainly died before the Civil War.

There's no existing evidence of that name at the cemetery and VanValkenburg, who now lives in Prattville, said that she created the list by merging data from the fire department, the Walker family and examining headstones.

The fact that the Cowan entry is incomplete and carries a question mark on the online survey probably indicates that she was unable to verify that name in 1998 and simply carried it over from one of the lists provided to her, she said Friday.

Today the cemetery has room for about 40 more burials, though space is shrinking as its live oaks and magnolias stretch their roots. To be buried in the Community Cemetery one must have lived in Orange Beach full time for at least 25 years - or be the child or spouse of someone who has. Eligibility is also open to active Orange Beach firefighters, such as Jeff Cooper, a captain who was the last person buried there, in December 2005.